Artist
Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953)American, born 1953
CultureAmerican
Titles
- Untitled #19, (Creek and Trees)
- from the series Night Coming Tenderly, Black
Date2017, printed 2022
MediumGelatin silver print
Dimensions48 × 59 in. (121.9 × 149.9 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment
Object number2022.815
Non exposé
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Department
PhotographySpecial Collections
Object Type
In this series, Dawoud Bey imagines the flight of enslaved Black Americans along the final, 50-mile leg of the Underground Railroad through Ohio to Lake Erie, on the other side of which lay Canada and freedom. As a covert network of safe houses and churches, the sites of the Underground Railroad were by necessity secret, and Bey’s landscapes suggest, rather than document, the experience. Photographed by day but printed in shades of gray and black so deep they resemble nocturnes, the prints conjure a darkness at once ominous and protective.
ProvenanceThe artist; [Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago]; purchased by MFAH, 2023.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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